


grief, light

by tashii



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Zukaang Week 2020, aged up zuko and aang, just two soulmates soulmatin'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25511929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tashii/pseuds/tashii
Summary: Aang and Zuko both have nightmares; fortunately, they also have each other. (Written for Zukaang Week 2020)
Relationships: Aang/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 187
Collections: Zukaang Week 2020





	grief, light

**Author's Note:**

> This is more “inspired by” than strictly adhering to the prompt for day 6 of Zukaang Week 2020: ghost. Also inspired by this lovely art by @tumblinplace

Zuko awakes to a faint blue light and imagines he’s dreaming, that he never escaped the ice floes of the North, that he’s a ghost trapped in frozen seaglass. His fingers reach for the dreamy blue luminescence, thinking to taste it, only to realize he’s in his bedchamber at the Fire Nation palace, and that the glow is Aang’s tattoos signaling some quiet distress in the sleeping airbender. Aang’s faced away from him, and Zuko sees the shiny stripe of blue flickering down his head and spine. It’s not the fierce, white-hot glow of the Avatar state, but a soft, plaintive shine both beautiful and haunting. If pain had a color, if grief turned to light - Zuko thinks they would form this exact shade of silvery blue. 

This is the third night this week. 

Aang shudders in his sleep and gives a strangled whisper, and it takes all of Zuko’s restraint not to reach out his arms and wrench his lover out of whatever visions or nightmares plague him. But Aang has counseled him on this matter - the Avatar was the bridge between spirits and humans, and while Aang walked among humans when awake, his sleeping hours belonged to the Spirits. They visited him and spoke to him and tried to sway him to their side; Aang was fortunate - the monks’ lessons in meditation and intuition meant he maintained better boundaries than most. There were stories of Avatars, Aang told Zuko once, who had neglected to erect those shields and gone mad. It was a careful dance of respect and distance. Being wrenched awake while the Spirits were clearly communing with Aang, no matter that a lover’s arms awaited him, could have terrible consequences. 

So Zuko turned, facing Aang, watching the blue light come and go, watching the planes of Aang’s back ripple and soften and tense in a lonely dance. As his enemy, he had followed Aang to the ends of the earth. As his lover, he can only go so far. The irony is cruel but just - he supposes it’s the price of loving the Avatar. 

The Spirits spoke in many tongues. Sometimes they appeared as themselves, Aang had explained, but most of the time they dredged up memory and deceptive images to disarm you. Zuko had discerned what Aang didn’t say. How do you hold on to sanity when the line between memory and illusion was water? Did the Spirits dazzle Aang with visions of a future where balance was well and truly restored between all four nations, only to strike him with images of carrion-picked bones in golden robes? Aang never said, and Zuko respected the auspices of the Avatar too much to ask. Still, it’s difficult not to pulse with angry, helpless concern as he watches Aang fight silent demons beside him.

When he can’t bear it any longer, Zuko slides closer and slips his arms around the monk. Aang, clammy and shivering and still asleep, offers no protest. Zuko holds him until he stops trembling and the tattoos grow dark. 

Aang exhales slowly and stirs in his arms. Zuko should apologize for waking him, but he’s too fiercely glad to have wrested Aang, however gently, from the hold of the Spirits. He peppers Aang’s shoulder blades with kisses that are soft, wordless apologies instead. 

“Zuko,” Aang hums, arching against him. “You woke me up.”

“I did.”

“You know you’re not supposed to,” Aang says, though he huddles closer to Zuko’s warmth. A slender arm reaches back and Aang’s fingers bury themselves in Zuko’s hair, lightly tugging the long, coarse locks. It’s playful and loving, the softest of reprimands. Only Aang can make a chastening feel like a current of warm summer air. Then the hold tightens briefly, gratefully, and Zuko buries his smile in the crook of Aang’s shoulder. “I know.”

They sleep the rest of the night in unblued dark.

* * *

He hardly dreams of his father anymore. Seeing the towering man who burned half his face and ripped his country, his life out from under him reduced to a bitter, shivering, fireless thing had almost completely cured Zuko of the nightmares that plagued his teenage years.

Almost.

The anniversary of his banishment, no matter how many years pass, no matter that he’s no longer that frightened child, lives in both memory and flesh. Stumbling through the ghosts of a bleak childhood, Zuko expects no reprieve. The dreams never relent until smoke and ash fill his lungs, until the scar on his face throbs like a fresh wound again. Only then does the nightmare release him cold and shivering into consciousness, to remember that he is Fire Lord now, and his father imprisoned. 

This time however, he’s pulled gently from the clutches of his own mind, lifted out with a tendril of air that has, in the dream, by some miracle, enough power to carry him out of the dark pit of his worst memories. Zuko awakes in Aang’s arms. There’s something cool and tender on his tingling scar, soothing the ghostly ache before it can throb. Aang’s hand, stroking the puckered skin light as a feather. Soft blue fades in the air around them and Zuko swallows, throat dry and head fuzzy from dreaming. “What happened?” he rasps.

“You were having a nightmare,” Aang says, grey eyes quietly glimmering with concern. 

“You woke me up.”

“I did,” Aang says gravely, his tone catching Zuko’s attention.

“Your tattoos -,”

“Oh.” Aang blinks, as though debating his words. His hold tightens briefly and he gives Zuko a quiet look. “I guess I don’t like seeing you in pain.”

“I’m sorry,” he adds, searching Zuko’s face. “I shouldn’t have interrupted like that - it was your dream and I just walked in. I’m sorry -,” 

Zuko swallows the rest of Aang’s apology in a kiss. He kisses Aang fiercely, with a hunger that revives his days at sea, the keen wind on his face and the Avatar flying ever out of reach on the blistering horizon, chasing honor, chasing hope, chasing home. Aang’s body under his hands, Aang’s mouth beneath his own, make him dizzy with joyous relief. Zuko pulls away, breathing shakily, managing a crooked smile. “Guess we’re even.”

Aang’s lips form a wry line, but his eyes are soft, alight.

It’s not really something they should make a habit of, true, but Aang doesn’t offer any argument. He trails gentle kisses over Zuko’s face, his brow, his puckered eyelid, his blemished and unblemished cheeks, until Zuko feels himself drift off to sleep again, cradled in dying blue.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Happy Zukaang Week everyone! I love this fandom <3 Let me know your thoughts, and thank you so much to those who left such lovely comments on my other zukaang fic "rival the sky". I read and treasured each one!


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